Corporate World
During the past nine years, I have met corporate clients through networking and referrals. I am in the process of building this side of my executive coaching practice. These clients are usually faced with career threatening issues, forced resignation, and life changing conflicts that require sensitive, experienced input and guidance.
My approach utilizes the same techniques that I use with senior executives in the nonprofit sector—30 years worth. I encourage you to take the assessment to see if you could make use of the insight that executive coaching provides.
While my hands on experience for the past 30 years has been with the nonprofit sector, I have followed the business world assiduously for the past twenty years. I know it from the management and governance sides. I know it thoroughly.
Nonprofit Sector
In the United States, the nonprofit world occupies 14% of the economy. It has a long history first observed by the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville who in the 1800’s visited the United States and observed that ”Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations…of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they have found hospitals, prisons and schools”.
Today there are over 1.4 million nonprofit organizations in the United States, and they are growing exponentially. They include organizations that are crucial to the future of western society. They are arts, cultural, educational, health, religious, scientific, and social welfare organizations. More and more of them are retaining executive coaches to assist their leadership maximize the talents and strengths of their management teams. “The kind of coaches I am talking about will do more than influence behaviors, they will be an essential part of a leader’s learning process, providing knowledge, opinions, and judgment in critical areas.”
(Ran Charan, “What Can Coaches Do For You”, Harvard Business Review, January 2007)
"This morning’s session was very fruitful for me. I appreciate your sincerity and thoroughness."
—An executive with a large nonprofit
"Sarah and I made some good progress last week and have decided that she will stay on. Some valuable lessons were learned by both of us. Thank you for all the support and valuable feedback."
—An executive director of a museum
"When I first came to Arnold, I was a down and out Executive Director ready to throw in the towel. After going through the executive coaching process I am invigorated, enthusiastic and have made strategic changes in board and staffing that clearly have made a difference in the energy, health and life of my organization and my personal life."
—An executive director of a national organization
"Talking through the issues with an unbiased, yet thoughtful and kind person were invaluable. Thinking through the issues was helpful in establishing some personal and professional goals."
—An executive director of a local organization
"Thank you for your compassion on Thursday. I was in a pretty rough place and clearly needed to unload some things before I could get into the work."
—An executive director of a regional organization
"Thanks to your insight and advice, our organization has been able to utilize its historic resources to develop a strategic plan for cultural tourism as an economic development tool. This plan has led to a positive impact in reshaping the image our community, working with local government, private citizens and existing businesses, into a place where both residents and visitors have captured a new sense of pride and vitality."
—A project manager of a city's business development project
"At a critical stage of my business and personal development, I retained Arnold Clickstein of Strategicwise Coaching as my confidential executive advisor and coach. Executive coaching is a fine art, and Arnold exemplifies it. He is a good listener and provider of insight. Arnold is quick to point out my attributes and how to make the best use of them as well as how to use them to counteract a lack of confidence. He breaks down the issues and problems into manageable components. The realignment of priorities, the reassessment of one's role and attitudes toward oneself and society at large is an exhaustive, and more than not, unpleasant road to travel. In my particular case, Arnold Clickstein's coaching proved invaluable, and I find his regular follow-up an affirmation of that experience.
As an executive with 25+ years in the corporate world, I found Arnold attuned to the latest trends in the corporate world and its changing landscape, cutting across corporate and societal cultures."
—A former executive with a Fortune 500 Corporation and Entrepreneur
"Thanks for meeting with us. The chairman of the board certainly heard things that I've been saying for months. (Yeah!) Again, thanks for your time and expertise."
—A CEO of a community organization
"Thanks for all your help—the presentation last night was fantastic!"
—A board member of an educational organization
"Arnold Clickstein is very professional, thorough and insightful. He met and at times exceeded our expectations."
—An assistant to the president of a graduate education institution
Through our "discussion of my work and personal life, I fine tuned and prioritized my personal and professional goals." Arnold Clickstein provided me with these valuable processes: "thoughtful and compassionate feedback, a personal strategic plan, encouragement, and reference tools."
—The executive director of a major museum in the northeast
In the same BoardSource article mentioned earlier, Alan Wichlei, a nonprofit executive search consultant at Issacson, Miller in Boston was quoted as saying that he "never encountered a successful executive who felt threatened by professional coaching. The ones from whom I've heard feel that they and their organizations gained from the experience."
If you would like a personal reference, I will put you in contact with one or two clients, subject to their willingness to identify themselves and their organizations. In the interim, here is more information about me.
Strategicwise
Arnold Clickstein
Executive & Transition Coach
32 Pickering Street
Winchester, Massachusetts 01890
617.834.2612
aclickstein@strategicwise.com
www.strategicwise.com